This story picks up right at the end of my time on the main island of Seychelles. I had just spent a few days road tripping through Mahé, and I was ready for new horizons. So, I gave back the car rental shop and walked onto a ferry to La Digue.
La Digue 101
La Digue is the third-largest island of the inner Seychelles, after Mahé and Praslin. Even though it’s one of the three main islands in the country, it’s actually one of the smaller islands in The ‘Shells altogether. Its quaint size makes it much quieter, picturesque and exclusive than the other two sister islands.
Being so tiny, it really lacks the need for extensive transit infrastructure; this makes it an almost completely car-free island. The primary way for tourists to get around is bikes, which are actually pretty cheap considering everything costs more in Seychelles.
There’s scarce taxi service and no car-rental services at all, which makes getting around by car very expensive (even for Seychelles standards).
As far as accessibility goes, getting to La Digue is quite a reasonable journey considering it’s only one direct ferry from the main island of Mahé; the journey is only about 1.5 hours.
The ferry ride over was indeed lovely, I splurged and booked a first-class ticket – Afterall, isn’t that what honeymoons are for?🤩
Arriving at La Digue was great; I was pretty excited about my days there. Like its sister islands, La Digue is endowed with great options for accommodation. I booked a stay at a really cool little boutique hotel, The Station Seychelles.
This fantastic Italian restaurant sits overlooking the ocean; I settled in and headed straight there for dinner. After a delicious meal, I turned in. It was an early night; I was eager to start the next day and explore La Digue by bike.
Bike-tripping through La Digue
Because the island is not too big, you can really do and see everything by bike. There is this circular road that takes you everywhere on the island. I started my adventure in the south since my hotel was there and began to drive south-east.
I should note that by this time, I had not been on a bicycle in years. Fortunately, the saying is true, one really never forgets how to ride a bike! So, I took off with my snorkel gear and began to ride clockwise. I ended up on one striking beach after another, swimming and snorkelling my way through paradise.
It was easy to spend the whole day on the bike. I even made it to the north part of the island, making stops at some of the many roadside stalls that sell delicious and fresh fruit juices.
At some point, the street ended in a very remote location. I found myself all alone on this secluded shore, and it was awesome. I enjoyed the solitude for a bit before heading back to the hotel.
I had lunch there and later continued on the bike to the other side of the island, an area that is very well known for having one of the most photographed beaches in the world, L’Anse Source D’Argent.
On the way there, I stumbled upon a super colourful cementary, genuinely unique.
Eventually, I made it to my destination. This beach is truly otherworldly, mainly because of its large pink-granite boulders, which stud the coastline; the white sand and lush palm forest behind don’t hurt the frame either!
I climbed around the boulders, making my way through the palm jungle to yet another exceptional beach. The whole excursion was a great adventure and well worth any hassle. I will let the pictures speak for themselves.
That was pretty much my first day in La Digue… Not too shabby.
Boat-tripping around La Digue
The next day was already my last day on the island, and I’d saved the best for last—a boat trip to some world-class snorkelling sites in nearby islands. The water was a bit choppy, but the snorkelling was absolutely superb.
La Digue and its surrounding waters are full of unique coral and other underwater rock formations. The habitat is home to many species like the Parrotfish, octopus, Eagle rays and Hawksbill turtles.
I didn’t see anything significant, no sharks or sea turtles, sadly. Although the reefs are nothing special, the abundance and diversity of marine totally makes up for it. I saw really nice colourful fish all over, and some parts of the coral reef were really nice, definitely among some of the best snorkelling experiences I’ve had.
The boat trip between islands was also very scenic. There are many groups of small islets in the Seychelles archipelago beyond the three main islands I visited.
These islands are mostly filled with big and famous resort chains like the Four Seasons and Club Med. I’m talking about really exclusive and really expensive hotels with stays upwards of 1, 2 and even 3 thousand dollars per night.
We got to see some of these hotels from the water. We didn’t dock in any of the islands, but it was still nice to take pictures from the boat as we drove close by.
After the snorkel trip, it was finally time to head to the final island of my lonelymoon, Praslin, the sister and bigger island of La Digue.
Finally Praslin
I had made a deal with a local boat driver to take me over. The two islands are very close, about 3km, so it worked out well. I also didn’t want to take the ferry because it was an early morning, and I didn’t want to leave before the snorkelling trip.
So I charted a boat to take me over to Praslin. From the harbour in Praslin, I immediately took a taxi to the other side of the island, straight to the resort I booked. This was the fanciest stay of my trip, by far, the Constance – Lemuria, a hotel chain from the Seychelles, one of the most exclusive hotels chains at that.
As expected, it’s a pretty fancy resort, and it definitely didn’t come at a bargain; I chose it because it has a very nice beach and one of the world’s largest and most scenic golf courses—eighteen holes in a very stunning setting. The greens are all over the grounds, spanning through the jungle and over hilltops where you can have the Indian Ocean as your backdrop.
I booked three days and two nights at the resort to relax a bit and enjoy my final days in the Seychelles in true Seychellois style. After checking in, I went on an exploratory hike around the expansive, picture-perfect grounds.
I spent some time walking around the hotel’s grounds and stumbled upon some rocky crops being grown by the workers who live in the hotel. They have this white rock statue of the Virgin Mary looking over their harvest.
There was a restaurant nearby, so I went for some late lunch and had some cake; afterwards, I continued to explore. This time I checked out the pools and then walked the golf course.
I made my way up a few hills and then all the way up the mountain they have at the property. It’s this big mountain, and at the top, there are some noteworthy stones and an excellent view of the beaches below.
After taking in the sights, I went back down the mountain to the main beach, Constantly Maria. It’s very famous, very beautiful and it was very full. I got there just in time for sunset, so I stayed for a little enjoying the beach, water and waves as the day turned to night.
Exploring nearby islands and meeting giant tortoises
The next day I spent the morning at the resort relaxing a bit and doing some consulting calls. After, I had time to go on a short walk before heading off on a boat tour I booked for the afternoon. It wasn’t another snorkelling trip; this time, I visited Alphonse Island, home to many incredible land-dwelling species, like the Aldabra Giant Tortoises.
When speaking about the biggest land tortoises in the world today, the Aldabra tortoise is second only to the Galapagos tortoise. When considering these gentle giants can sport shells that can grow over 5 feet long, it is no surprise Aldabra tortoises can weigh more than 200 kilos.
Seeing all these massive tortoises roaming around the island was pretty cool. In Seychelles, you can find turtles in most islands, but this island has the largest population of Aldabra tortoises of them all.
It was a pretty unique experience considering giant tortoises can only be found in two places in the world today – the Aldabra Atoll in Seychelles and the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador.
Side note: Aldabra is the world’s second-largest coral atoll, and it’s located in the Aldabra Group of islands in the Indian Ocean – also part of the Outer Islands of the Seychelles.
We walked around the island for a while longer. First, to a viewpoint for a moment to take in the landscape; and then through this mangrove path which takes you into a mangrove forest where you see a bunch of crabs and other typical mangroves wildlife.
The lagoon there is a known spot for baby hammerhead sightings. Apparently, there were many hammerheads spotted on that boat trip, so I ended up doing some snorkelling after all. Sadly, I didn’t get to see any hammerheads while there.
I did go on a propper snorkelling trip while on the island, a boat excursion around Praslin. On this excursion, we went to some other world-class snorkelling spots nearby. The reefs were terrific, granted; the waters were a bit shallow but spectacular underwater scenery with beautiful fish nonetheless.
In the afternoon, I went back to the resort to relax and spend a quiet evening. I had dinner at the resorts’ buffet; they served all these international foods from all around the world. The food was ok, and it was a very chill evening.
Learning to play golf in paradise
The next day I spent it relaxing by the beach and learning to play golf!
I hired a caddy, a golf coach, got many golf balls (which I needed), and rented a golf cart to give the 18-hole course a shot. I planned to do all 18 myself, well the first three holes, I had the coach with me showing me the ropes, but then I went on my own.
I lost a bunch of balls in the ponds, lakes and jungle bits, but I had a perfect time. I ended up skipping a few holes, which I deemed boring. Basically, I wanted to do the hardest ones: the mountains, from the tops of the hill, etc. There was one where you literally have to drive the ball over 100 meters of jungle from the top of a hill… at least it wasn’t from the bottom of the hill.😅
There were other holes with really scenic backdrops overlooking the Indian Ocean. I focussed on those, mostly skipping the burrowing ones, flat ones and the ones where you lose a lot of balls to a lake or pond.
I didn’t want to waste too much time going through all 18 properly. That could easily take over 6 hours, especially since there’s a lot of driving in between holes and whatnot.
In the end, I had a great time driving around with my golf cart taking pictures; I even found golf to be quite fun!
In the late afternoon, I had a wine tasting scheduled. The resort has an extensive wine cellar at the property and a very knowledgeable and friendly sommelier. I really enjoyed the time I spent speaking with him; he’s from France, so we tasted some really nice french wines. After some great back and forth, I got his number, and he’s now recommended some wine estates around the world for me to visit, so that was great.
For my last evening in Seychelles, I dressed up and went for dinner at the fancy à la carte restaurant in the hotel. The food was delightful, and it was paired nicely with some delicious wine recommended by my new friend—the perfect way to end an epic lonelymoon.
Last day in Seychelles
It was already time to depart from the archipelago the next day, but as always, I made the most of the little time I still had in Praslin Island that morning.
I had a taxi driver drive me to Vallée de Mai Nature Reserve, a nature park and UNESCO World Heritage Site on the island. It’s made up of a well-preserved palm forest, flagship species made up of the island endemic Coco de Mer, as well as five other endemic palms.
It was actually pretty uneventful, just walking around for about an hour taking pictures of the valley.
After the valley, we went to yet another beach for lunch. It was nice, but it was a bit rainy; that didn’t stop me from going to some other beaches, though. I made sure to explore all the remaining shores I had yet to see before leaving Praslin.
In the afternoon, my driver took me to the airport for my domestic flight back to Mahé. It was a super short but scenic flight.
In Mahé, I had a short layover.
I was in Dubai for a few days after, handling many matters for my residency there, meeting up with friends and such. That’s all tales for another story, though!
